


Seeds of Discord Pt. 8

by kbj1123



Series: Wonder Woman & Captain America [9]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Wonder Woman - All Media Types
Genre: Action/Adventure, Adventure & Romance, Crossover Pairings, F/M, One True Pairing, Sexual Content, Superheroes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-05
Updated: 2015-02-05
Packaged: 2018-03-10 15:06:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3294872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kbj1123/pseuds/kbj1123
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Someone or something is causing violent riots to erupt all over the U.S., and whatever it is, it wreaks havoc with both Wonder Woman's health and Bruce Banner's ability to keep his rage in check.</p><p>For HockyKnight: One good yoga sequence deserves another :)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seeds of Discord Pt. 8

**Author's Note:**

  * For [HockeyKnight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HockeyKnight/gifts).



“Are you ready for this?” Diana nods to Bruce. They stand at the front of their mats, facing each other. The only sound in this white, windowless room is the heat blowing through the vents from the ceiling. She closes her eyes and rocks back and forth from the balls of her feet to her heels, then from her left foot to her right. She senses deeply into her feet, finding her balance and stability. She used to do this in Themyscira when her mother led her through mindfulness exercises. She brings her awareness through her calves and thighs, tries to sense into the minute space between her tight leggings and her skin. She draws her palms to her heart center, imagining that with her inhalation, fresh, clean air surrounds and fills the energy there. This is tadasana, she’s learned, or “mountain pose.” For a moment, however, she is on her favorite beach at home, her own private space, and almost hears the waves, and the sounds of her sisters—her subjects, singing off in the distance. Instead of rubber mat and dry heat, she feels sand and sunlight. She brings her awareness back to the present moment. The Princess of Themyscira is not on her beach; the women are not in this space. There is a reason they use this room: no distractions: no music, no colors or shapes, and no choice but to focus on what is happening in the body-mind. It is an honor that Bruce share’s this empty space with her.

She inhales again, drawing her palms up over head. She presses her shoulder blades into her back, letting them cradle the space that holds her heart. With a flat back, she dives forward. She knows her long braid has probably hit Bruce in the face as he dove down as well. “Sorry,” she says, without opening her eyes. He doesn’t reply, but she hears a kind of dismissal of the intrusion in his breath. Her brow touches her shins. She sees blue: not just the blue of the spandex against her head, but the blue that is the energy of her intuition: deep indigo. She inhales blueness, and in so doing, inhales Pallas Athena’s perception and clarity...hopefully. 

On the next exhalation she extends her right leg as far back as she can, into low lunge. She draws her sternum forward, brings her arms past her head and curling her toes under, she lifts her hips and thighs off the ground. Her sternum and heart press toward her friend and she’s reasonably sure he’s staring at her breasts as she rolls her shoulders further away from her ears. “Balancing Warrior.” They are here because these warriors do need to find balance right now. She wishes Steve was her as well, rather than deployed for a few days in San Francisco, investigating a riot with Natasha. He will be home today. She will see him at the afternoon meeting and they will go home together. “Breathe, Diana,” she hears Bruce say. He must be focusing on her more than himself if he senses her breath changing. She focuses on her inner thighs, isometrically drawing them together, and draws her navel in toward her spine. The motion makes her hips sink a little further into the pose. 

On the next exhalation she steps her left foot back into plank, then lifts her right foot off the floor, catches her foot with her left hand in a kind of backbend. Just keep breathing, she tells herself. I am here. When she steps back into downward facing dog, lifting her sit bones, she releases her heels into the floor and she is fully grounded again. I am here. I am here. Breathe. Just this, just this inhalation, just this exhalation. She becomes aware of her heart quickening as she drops her chest further toward her thighs. 

She steps forward into balancing warrior with her right foot. The balance on this side is different—not as steady. Her friend is here to keep her steady. She wants Steve here. She’s grown accustomed to having his strength to buttress her. When did she lose her own sense of balance? She lets her head drop back into the basket of her shoulders, exposing her jugular to Bruce. She needs to become comfortable with her own vulnerability to regain her center of strength. They both do. That’s why they’re effectively grounded from missions for now. She can find the place where she is able to want and miss Steve without losing her balance, without needing him. The more she seeks such a space within herself, the more elusive it becomes.

When she feels her body warm, she steps forward, bringing her thumbs to her sternum again. She remembers to press into her feet. Always start with your support. “What part of you will carry your weight into the world with grace?” she remembers a teacher asking her once. She senses into her pelvic bone, her center of gravity. Femurs descend from hip sockets and energy flows downward, like water, into the earth. Rib cage lifts, crown lifts to Olympus, to the heavens. She is a princess and a demigoddess. Her body-mind must remember this, or she will never get through the ordeal to come. Somewhere inside, past her bones, she is certain that there is an ordeal to come. 

Just breathe. Just this. And her friend is here to support her, even if he might be staring at the demarcation of muscles in her torso right now. “Deepen your breath. Control it,” she hears him say.

She smiles. “I’m trying,” she tells him.

“I wasn’t talking to you.” 

She remembers Natasha’s warning. “You don’t realize the effect you have on men. If Bruce wants to meditate or do asanas with you, it’s because he thinks it would be a good way to test his own control. He knows you can take on the Hulk.” Steve had said something similar. “Of course I trust you, sweetheart. And I trust Bruce. That doesn’t mean I’m completely comfortable with the whole project, though. I don’t trust what might happen if he loses control. I see the way other people look at you—even the ones that love us.”

She reminds herself, I am here. Her mind has been elsewhere for most of this first round of surya namaskar. The mind is a time-traveler. It doesn’t stay still for very long. Focus on sensation and you render the mind still. It was a very early lesson in her upbringing. It was meant to counter an iron-clad prophesy her mother had heard, that her daughter would dream of life elsewhere, fight in the world of man. She would be restless. So Hippolyta taught her to control her mind. Right now Diana’s mind is with Steve, and she feels like she can almost touch it. She wonders if it’s a skill she could develop. She wonders why physical miles, just space between them, makes her feel less whole. Just breathe. I am here, now, and whole. This used to be easy.

She goes through the motions of another ten rounds, forcing herself to go slowly. “You can’t outpace your own thoughts, Diana,” Bruce said to her once. “Even you aren’t fast enough for that, so just stay with whatever’s happening in your mind. Be curious about it. Make friends with it so it stops demanding your attention.” The room is white. She hears her own breath, her friend’s breath, the heated air through the vents. She sits on a meditation cushion and focuses on nothing, allowing nothingness to simply happen to her.

Later that afternoon, the team waits for Diana so the meeting can begin. “And you saw her last in the yoga room?” Steve repeats, looking at Bruce.

“She was gone when I opened my eyes.”

Steve glares at him. “And nothing was out of place, nothing was broken, Mr. Hyde didn’t stuff her in a closet somewhere. She’s not answering her phone, Bruce, and it seems you’re the one who saw her last.”

“Look,” Tony tells him. “It seems unlikely that she just disappeared, and the entire wing of the building knows when Hulk is around. She’s been wiped lately. Maybe she just took a nap somewhere.”

“Sensors haven’t picked her up in the building.” Steve replies. He feels like breaking something. An assistant to Director Fury quietly walks in and places a note in front of him. He nods, and the assistant leaves. He flips a switch and monitors unfold from the meeting table. “We have a very big problem.” He looks at Steve with a mixture of sympathy and caution. “Try to stay calm.” On their screens, each team member sees a picture of Diana. She is bound to a wall in heavy iron chains, slumped over unconscious. She is still wearing her yoga clothes: dark blue leggings, bright pink sports bra, and bare feet. Then Steve sees another familiar face. Nyx walks up to Diana and pulls her head up by her hair, so everyone can see her face. He takes out a hunting knife and presses it to her jaw just enough to make her bleed a little bit. When he removes it, the opening heals. Nyx looks into the camera and smiles. He says, “I believe we can do business, now. We will be in touch soon.”


End file.
